The present invention relates to a method for packaging fast foods in a unique container. Specifically, the present invention has utility in packaging hot food items such as pizza, chicken, hamburgers and the like.
Everyone has probably brought pizza or chicken home in a paperboard container. Such containers are often made out of corrugated board. Sometimes the pizza is placed on a circle of corrugated board and placed in a bag. Unfortunately, the hot food is often cold by the time you get home. Even more annoying, grease and condensing moisture often leak through the paperboard, corrugated board or paper bag onto your car seat or onto your clothes.
Some fast food chains, particularly hamburger emporiums, package their hot foods in foamed polystyrene containers. This material has been used in coffee cups for years. It has the advantage of keeping the hamburgers hot. Also, it is impossible for grease or condensed moisture to leak through the foam material.
This seems to provide an ideal solution to the dilemma of paper or paperboard containers for hot foods. Unfortunately, there is a subtle problem associated with use of styrofoam containers for hot foods. When hot foods are stored in styrofoam containers for a period of time, they become soggy. Pizza crust in particular becomes soggy. Hamburger buns tend to become soggy and limp. Crispy chicken arrives home as soggy chicken.
Also, foamed polystyrene containers are not entirely satisfactory for large containers such as pizza containers for a number of reasons. First, they have to be so thick to provide sufficient beam strength that they become very expensive. Secondly, they must be molded to a container shape. One cannot readily bend foamed polystyrene sheet into a container configuration since it tends to fracture and/or to follow its own irratic crease. This means that very costly molds and/or thermal forming have to be used. Also, it means the containers cannot be shipped and stored as flat blanks for later assembly by the user.
Some prior artists have attempted to solve this problem by venting plastic containers. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,433 issued to Lombardi on May 6, 1969, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,214 issued to Mancuso on Nov. 15, 1977. It is our experience, however, that this solution is inadequate. There is still a tendency for it to "rain" inside the container, even with ventilation. Further, the ventilation tends to defeat the purpose of using the styrofoam container in that it lets heat out and allows cool air in.